FEATURE
The kind of changes that are needed aren’t going to happen within a
single funding cycle.” Frances Pouch Downes, DrPH
Gone too are the laboratory’s programs
for rotavirus testing, arbovirus testing
and Bordetella speciation. Significant
budget cuts also threatened DCLS’s
culture-independent diagnostic testing
and testing for carbapenem-resistant
bacteria—a class of drug-resistant
microbes that commonly cause infections
in healthcare settings—but aggressive
outreach resulted in state funds to replace
lost ELC monies.
Last year, DCLS lost a critical laboratory
liaison position responsible for tracking
grant spending and pulling together
testing statistics and outbreak status
reports for state epidemiologists. Now,
any requests for data fall back on the
scientists and technicians doing the
testing, “if it’s [provided] at all.”
Another hard-hit area is foodborne
disease testing, funded partly through
the Food Emergency Response Network
(FERN), coordinated by the US Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) and the US
Department of Agriculture.
Any reduction in funding, said Toney,
“impacts the amount of work we can do
and the timeliness with which we can do
it, because our capability and capacity for
food testing is directly aligned with our
funding. When our budget is reduced, we
accept fewer samples [for testing].”
Just in the past few years, FERN support
contributed to the resolution of several
Virginia outbreaks, including clusters of
illness linked to Listeria-tainted sprouts,
Salmonella Javiana-tainted clam chowder
and Salmonella Weltevreden-tainted
kratom (an unregulated supplement
reputed to have psychotropic effects).
The last of these triggered FDA’s first
mandatory product recall.
Toney’s food-testing staff also provided
FERN surge capacity testing for a
multistate outbreak of Salmonella
Braenderup tied to shell eggs used at a
national chain restaurant.
With decreased FERN support, Toney said,
the state has had to cut back on FERN
training and to prioritize implementation
of new methods based on state needs
rather than federal surveillance needs.
On a national level, she said, “I think the
amount of data we have is going to be
less than we’ve had in the past and may
negatively impact our understanding
of the outbreaks we’re investigating. ...I
definitely think it is going to slow our
ability to identify contaminated food.
And anytime we have a slow response, it
means there is a source of contamination
that is still out there causing disease.”
Microbiologist Joseph Hancock speciates and sorts
mosquitoes received as part of the vector borne mosquito
surveillance program. Photo: TX DSHS Arbovirus Lab
“This is really important work.”
The rapid dissemination of novel
coronavirus from China is a stark
reminder that disease control cannot be
limited to the United States. Although the
FY2020 CDC budget includes a $75 million
boost for the GHSA—a multinational
effort focused on building capacity for
infectious disease control worldwide—this
gain must be balanced against the loss of
over $100 million/year from supplemental
federal funding for Ebola control.
Frances Pouch Downes, DrPH, a public
health professor at Michigan State
University and former head of the
Michigan Public Health Laboratory, said
“We don’t think strategically when we
make these development investments;
when you whittle away the funding, you
open up gaps or fail to fill gaps.”
She said, “When something scary happens
we throw money at it. But when the
emergency subsides the need [for global
public health capacity] doesn’t subside.
There will be a next infectious disease.”
Downes, who has been involved in the
development of a national laboratory
network in Indonesia, said every piece of
the GHSA is “relevant, important work”—
things like safety training to assure
proper containment of biohazards, quality
laboratory systems to assure the accuracy
of test results and rapid data transfer to
inform public health decision-making.
Yet, on a visit to Capitol Hill last year,
Downes said many of the Congressional
Scientist Lenard Mendoza performs mass spectrometry testing in the Newborn Screening Laboratory. Photo: DCLS
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LAB MATTERS Winter 2020
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